Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

New Mills Boer War Tribute Medal, silver, with gold central shield, hallmarks for Birmingham 1900, the reverse engraved, ‘Presented to Pte. J. Leadbetter on his return from South Africa by the public of New Mills, June 28/02’, very fine and extremely rare £600-800

Not recorded in Hibbard. New Mills is a town in Derbyshire, eight miles south-east of Stockport and 15 miles from Manchester. The tribute medals were presented on the day of King Edward VII’s coronation, Saturday 28 June 1902, as reported by The Sheffield Daily Telegraph the following Monday:

‘PRESENTATION AT NEW MILLS

There was a big gathering, numbering thousands, in the Town Hall Square, New Mills on Saturday evening, when there was a public presentation of beautiful gold and silver medals, subscribed for by the inhabitants of the district, to those New Mills reservists and volunteers who have served their country in South Africa during the Boer War. The members of the New Mills detachment were present, in charge of Lieut. Pollitt. In the absence of Mr J. Cochrane, chairman of the District Council, Councillor Scattergood presided.

Lieut. Pollitt said he felt it an honour to have been asked to present these handsome medals to their heroes. The men from New Mills had acquitted themselves creditably while on the battlefield, and not one of them had ever been guilty of a breach of discipline. (Hear, hear.) He then presented medals to the following:

Sergeant Frank Mower, King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment; Corporal Alfred Shaw, 1st Derbyshires; Corporal Joseph Hewitt, 5th Manchesters; Private William Sheldon and Private Benjamin Arnfield, King’s Own Royal Lancasters; Private Richard Jones, Royal Field Artillery; Private Joseph Leadbetter, 1st Welsh Fusiliers; Private J. Rodgers, Private J. Dyer, 5th Manchesters; Private Samuel Newton and Private J. Kirkham, New Mills Detachment of B Company (Chapel-en-le-Frith), Sherwood Foresters, Derbyshire Regiment; Private J. Wood and Private T. Morten, H Company (Whaley Bridge), Sherwood Foresters, Derbyshire Regiment; Private Samuel Oakley, Derbyshire Regiment; Private J. Bunting, North Lancasters; and Private F. Newton, St. John Ambulance Corps.

A melancholy feature of the function was the presentation of specially engraved medals to the father of Private Samuel Sheldon, of the Cheshire Regiment, who succumbed to enteric in South Africa, and to the widow (who was unable to be present) of Private William Cody, who was killed on active service. The medals belonging to those still in South Africa were handed to their representatives. Several of the recipients responded and were loudly cheered. At the close of the proceedings the band played “God Save the King.”’

2309 Private J. Leadbetter was a reservist recalled to the Colours on the outbreak of the Boer War. A grinder by trade, he had enlisted in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers at Wrexham on 31 December 1888, aged 19, and served eight years at home and in India before transferring to the Army Reserve on 3 January 1897. On 2 January 1898 he married Mary Elizabeth Keeling, a cotton reeler in one of the New Mills factories. Recalled from the reserve and re-joining the 1st Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers in October 1899 he fought in the Boer War throughout Buller’s Natal campaign and beyond. He returned to the United Kingdom on 23 December 1901 after two years and two months away from home on active service in South Africa. He was discharged at Wrexham on 1 January 1902 with his intended place of residence as Bank Side, New Mills, near Stockport. Leadbetter was awarded the Indian General Service Medal with clasp ‘Hazara 1891’ and the Queen’s South Africa Medal with six clasps, ‘Cape Colony’, ‘Tugela Heights’, ‘Relief of Ladysmith’, ‘Wittebergen’, Transvaal’, ‘South Africa 1901’.